Osama bin Laden must be thinking he’s the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Despite all the rhetoric of “not letting the terrorists win,” his plans have succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. In less than two years, his actions have managed to fundamentally reshape American society, make us even more hated in Islamic societies, draw us into expensive and deadly conflicts on multiple fronts, and alienate us from long-time allies around the world. Isn’t that *exactly* what he wanted? How powerful must he be feeling right now?
And we served it all up to him on a silver platter.
I think a good exercise on this two-year anniversary would be to consider truthfully – what have we accomplished? What have we gained?
Yes, and we supplied the perfect “dope” for “rope-a-dope.”
This is too weird, Adam… You articulated the thought I had as I was falling asleep last night, remembering the events of two years ago.
How can you possibly believe that the actions of past U.S. governements are to be left out of this equation? And that the current extremist make-up of the administration is somehow incidental to the changes that have occurred?
bin Laden is a lucky political coincidence for the Have’s in their war against the Have-Not’s, not the mastermind behind the reshaping of the American way.
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I go now.
Here’s a good 20 questions compilation:
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/6742902.htm
(please pardon the virus-blogging)
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I go now.
Matt: Osama wasn’t the one who made these changes. That’s why I called him “lucky.” The current administration isn’t “incidental,” obviously. But when his own aims are carried out to the letter by Americans themselves, that makes him a powerful figure.
Word of the Day
legerdemain
“The attribution of recent changes in American society to Osama bin Laden is an adroit display of legerdemain.”
I think you’re both missing the point.
Adam, the wording of your post suggests that this is a grand design by Mr. Former Public Enemy #1. If you included the idea that he started the ball rolling, knowing full well that the current pool of politicians in America would be such foreign-policy fools as to turn global goodwill toward the U.S. into complete isolationist antagonism (not to mention the first ever ‘pre-emptive’ war in American history) then I would have concurred.
Instead, you made it sound as though bin Laden’s luck and power have made the changes to the country.
Perhaps I’m being too cagey, since we have similar points. I just think that focusing on a single individual, even if he’s the one who ‘masterminded’ the watershed event in question, is misguided.
To put too fine a point on it, why not restate your post in its entirety, replacing “Osama bin Laden” with “George Herbert Walker Bush” or “Antonin Scalia” or “John Ashcroft” or “George W. Bush” or “Karl Rove” or “Mohammed Atta” or “Saddam Hussein al Tikriti”? Why not call them all out, give credit/blame where it is due?
Or, if I’m still missing the point, why not elucidate it?
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Matt: At the risk of running this point into the ground (too late), I meant that we took the bait. Osama did something that he hoped would cause X,Y, and Z, and amazingly, all his aims came true. I meant the post to be an idictment of how we said we were going to beat those terrorist bastards, and instead we played right into their hands. His “power” rested, in the end, entirely with us. We carried out his plan for him. That’s what I meant.
When the US announced it was going in after Osama, I told me neighbor that that man was now the safest man on the planet. She just looked at me; confused. I think she gets it now.
My head is spinning. Somehow, I think Adam and Matt are both right, and yet they are in an argument. God help me I am confused. The only thing I know for sure is all assholes got what they wanted and we are left arguing about which asshole got the most of what he wanted. Still an interesting duscussion though. Thanks for thinking to everybody, it seems to be an out of style thing to do for the past few thousand years.
All of you are right and wrong.All of your ‘ARGUMENTS’ are deemed valid in my eyes the problem here is that we pacify oursleves to our peers and public.Is there or was there ever such thing as freedom of speech or do we repeat what others want us to say. My point being: These are all lies that we believe and choose to discuss.With war in mind we manifest our own demise. Mans greatest gift and worst enemy is his EGO. Spread the truth ,FIGHT THE POWER.